A blog about developments in the nongovernmental, nonprofit, charitable sector in China.

Sunday, June 3, 2018

In Remembrance of Memory

On the 29th anniversary of the 1989 pro-democracy movement, I thought
I would post some of my favorite excerpts from the essays of Liu Xiaobo[i], a
participant in the 1989 movement and the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner who died
in a Chinese prison on July 13, 2017. Written more than 10 years ago, these
excerpts continue to resonate for me in this age of Xi Jinping.“The Communist Party of China’s
Dictatorial Patriotism” (2005)In this age of strongman politics, in which Xi Jinping has demanded absolute
loyalty to the party, Liu reminds us that we should have no illusion about the
nature of one-party rule.

In short, a government can only be qualified to
represent the interests of the people, which, when combined, constitute
national interests, if it respects and loves the people, and, in particular, if
it respects and protects the rights of the people to question, criticize, and
even oppose government policies by peaceful means. Only then can it be called a
patriotic government and only then is it qualified to promote patriotism.

However, the patriotism of a
dictatorial regime is exactly the opposite: it promotes patriotism with
high-flying talk but never respects or cares for the mainstay of the nation—the
people.

First, its power is not conferred by
the people but comes from and is sustained by violence. It transforms public
power, which is supposed to serve the public good of society, into private
power of the regime and the powerful, into a tool for implementing the will of
the regime and obtaining profits for the powerful.

The current CPC may be the world’s largest political
party, but compared to the 1.3 billion people in China, its 60 some million
members are no more than a small minority, so how can it so shamelessly boast
that it “represents the people and the nation”? The reason the CPC regards
itself to be the natural representative of “the country, the nation, and the
people” is not at all because it truly has “the mandate of Heaven to carry out
justice,” but because it wants to maintain its dictatorial power and protect
its vested interests.

“Changing the Regime by
Changing Society” (2006)This is my favorite essay of Liu Xiaobo’s, full of optimism and faith in the
power and agency of society, and with wise words about how change will come to
China.

In an un-free society ruled by a
dictatorship, under the premise of the temporary absence of power that can
change the dictatorial nature of the regime, the civic ways that promote the
transformation of Chinese society from the bottom up that I know of are as
follows:

3. Regardless of how great the freedom-denying power
of a regime and its institutions is, every individual should still fight to the
best of his/her ability to live as a free person, that is, make every effort to
live an honest life with dignity. In any society ruled by dictatorship, when those
who pursue freedom publicly disclose their views and practice what they preach,
as long as they manage to be fearless in the small details of everyday life,
what they say and do in everyday life will become the fundamental force that
will topple the system of enslavement.

5. Whether an insider or an outsider of
the system, whether working from the top down or the bottom up, each should
respect the other’s right to speak. Even the statements and actions of people
attached to the government, as long as they do not force constraints on the
independent discourse among the people and the rights defense movement, should
be regarded as a useful exploration of transformational strategies and their
right of speech should be fully respected. Those who advocate transformation
from the top down should maintain adequate respect for the explorations of
those working from the bottom-up among the people.

6. Institutional common sense on how to confront
rather than evade an ever-present dictatorial power: place into one’s own hands
the initiative for improving the status of the population without rights,
rather than pinning hope on the arrival of some enlightened master or
benevolent ruler. In the strategic maneuvering between civil society and the
government, regardless of how official policies may change, the most important
thing is to encourage and assist the civil rights defense movement and hold
fast the independent position of civil society.

In sum, China’s course toward a free
society will mainly rely on bottom-up gradual improvement and not the top-down
“Chiang Ching-kuo style” revolution.Bottom-up reform requires
self-consciousness among the people, and self-initiated, persistent, and
continuously expanding civil disobedience movements or rights defense movements
among the people. In other words, pursue the free and democratic forces among
the people; do not pursue the rebuilding of society through radical regime
change, but instead use gradual social change to compel regime change. That is,
rely on the continuously growing civil society to reform a regime that lacks
legitimacy.

“The Many
Aspects of Chinese Communist Party Dictatorship” (2006)

Here Liu delves further into the nature of a one-party regime, which is
increasingly propped up by coercion and economic enticements than through any ideological
belief in communism, and questions its lasting power.

The CCP regime suppresses dissident political forces
in a variety of ways: shadowing, wiretapping and imprisonment, as well as
bribery and coercion; evil laws and low schemes, as well as gray space; regime
dictatorship, as well as thug violence; open criticism and, secret purges;
ironfisted methods, as well as appeals to human emotion (the police officers in
charge of keeping watch on dissidents invariably start up their conversations
in a “getting-acquainted” tone), to the extent that even when reining in those
intractable rebels, the police leave themselves some leeway in that they no
longer claim to be motivated by high-sounding ideological reasons, but rather
deploy the “rice-bowl theory” that they are simply trying to keep their jobs.

However, the very use of such pragmatic, flexible
control methods, because of their thoroughly opportunistic nature, paints the
doomsday picture of dictatorial politics—countless flaws in the system itself,
questions of the regime’s legitimacy, and rapid erosion of its
effectiveness—where the ruler and the ruled engage in expedient cooperation
based on the principle of profit-before-everything.

“The
Negative Effects of the Rise of Dictatorship on Democratization in the World” (2006)

In this essay, Liu foreshadows the growing concern about the effect that
China’s rise has had in shaping global norms and standards concerning
development, governance, democracy and human rights.

The CPC regime has replaced the former Soviet Union to
become a blood transfusion machine for other dictatorships. It provides large
quantities of economic assistance to dictatorships such as North Korea, Cuba,
and Myanmar, offsetting to some degree the impact of Western economic sanctions
and enabling these remaining despotic regimes on their last legs to linger on.

The CPC regime uses China’s huge market to lure and
coerce big capital from the West, and the very nature of capital is to chase
profit with no regard for universal values or fair trade. So the big capital
from various Western nations inevitably tries to exert influence on its home
country’s China policy…..To make a profit, these companies have gone as far as
to recklessly betray universal values and the American government’s human
rights foreign policy. Without exception, they have all bowed to political
pressure and coercion from the CPC regime and have become its accomplices in
restricting the freedom of expression and in its literary inquisition.

[i]English-language translations of these essays are
available on Human Rights in China (HRIC)’s website.